Policy expert counters that Senator Scott Wiener is not "soft" on AI regulation

2 people · 3 posts · first post Tue 18:59 UTC · latest 11 days ago

Policy expert Nathan Calvin asserts that claims criticizing Senator Scott Wiener for being "too soft" on AI regulation are inaccurate. Calvin points to his work on SB 1047, a proposed frontier AI safety regulation that was vetoed. He suggests these attacks ignore the Senator's prior regulatory efforts.

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1. @_nathancalvin policy · Tue 18:59 UTC
   As someone who worked closely with Senator Scott Wiener on SB 1047 (first in the nation frontier AI safety regulation hated by big AI companies and vetoed for being too strong), the idea of him being attacked for being unwilling to regulate AI is laughably absurd
   absurd that the attack ads against Scott Wiener in the CA senate race are specifically lambasting him for being… too soft on AI open on X
   80 likes · 5 reposts
2. @_nathancalvin policy · Tue 19:00 UTC
   some longer thoughts I wrote the last time I saw these claims pop up
   @_nathancalvin: If you had told me two years ago, when I was working with Senator Wiener on SB 1047, that someone would try to rewrite history to claim he was soft on AI regulation, I would have laughed in your face. But here we are. So let's get the facts straight. Scott Wiener wrote the bill the AI industry lobbied Congress to preempt. Senator Ted Cruz has publicly cited SB 1047 as one of the reasons motivating his push for federal preemption to block states from regulating AI. That is not the record of someone soft on the industry. A few more facts worth getting straight: • Senator Wiener introduced SB 1047 in February 2024. It set off a firestorm of debate and became the first major piece of AI safety legislation passed by a state legislature anywhere in the country before being vetoed by Governor Newsom. The Wikipedia page has a lengthy list of supporters and opponents if you're curious. You are free to criticize the bill. The idea that Wiener was too soft on industry in pushing it is not a serious claim. • After the veto, Governor Newsom convened an AI working group that included experts who had been critical of SB 1047's approach. They recommended a revised bill focused on transparency, incident reporting, and whistleblower protections, rather than mandated guardrails or expanded liability for misuse. • Senator Wiener incorporated those recommendations into SB 53 in July 2025. What followed were intense rounds of negotiations with powerful AI industry actors, particularly Google, Amazon, and Meta. (I remember this well, because during those negotiations I was personally subpoenaed by OpenAI for all my communications on SB 53.) • Politico reported, and I can confirm, that Senator Wiener negotiated fiercely over that summer, repeatedly threatening to walk and blow up negotiations if the bill was compromised. Yes, changes were made. SB 53 is both a landmark first-in-the-nation AI safety law and a bill that will need to be strengthened in future legislation. But the notion that Senator Wiener wanted those changes or supported the weakening is laughable. He pushed for the strongest bill that could still be signed into law. He did not want SB 53 vetoed the way SB 1047 was. • Your video conflates two different AI Super PACs. Leading the Future has been explicit about supporting federal preemption to remove state AI protections, and has aggressively attacked politicians like Alex Bores who support AI regulation. You can look at my feed to see what I think of them. Public First is a different PAC. It receives funding from Anthropic, among others. It was created specifically to counter Leading the Future, it has defended Alex Bores from LTF attacks, and it is fighting against AI preemption and supporting states in their efforts to enact AI protections. It is the PAC supporting Senator Wiener in this race.

 For what it's worth, I wish we didn't have Super PACs at all. But Public First, created in response to the enormous funding Leading the Future has spun up, is an important counterweight in the world as it is to support candidates with a track record of delivering on AI regulation and AI safety. Criticize Public First, SB 53, or anything else you want to. But this video is misleading, and it is insulting to those of us who spent years working with Senator Wiener to pass the first AI safety laws in the country against fierce industry opposition. Insofar as this was a genuine misunderstanding, I would appreciate you saying so directly. open on X
   2 likes · 0 reposts

Reposted by @miles_brundage.